Inkwells
by Nikola11
Summary: Doctor!Kurt; Writer!Blaine When one of Blaine's sons is discovered to have a rare autoimmune disorder, he's referred to Doctor Kurt Hummel for treatment. Also, Orphan!Kurt, Hypergraphia!Blaine, and CoolUncle!Cooper


Part 1- Inkwells

They've dragged me up onto the stiff bed with them both, squished between hard plastic railing and one small, sleeping body. A machine drones above our heads, a steady beeping lullaby. I run my fingers through their hair, first one, tight black curls like my own, and then the other, looser and lighter waves of brown. There's a twitching in my hand, an itch in my brain, and I ignore both. This isn't the time. Any moment now-

The door opens after a series of quick knocks, more a courtesy than to ask actual permission, and my son's doctor steps in. He smiles widely at the three of us, one grown man curled around two toddlers on a bed very obviously not intended for multiple occupancy. His hair looks a little limper, a little flatter than it did this morning, but it's late now, and he must have been busy all day. Maybe he mussed it up in a moment of frustration or absent-mindedness.

"How is he doing?" the Doctor asks, standing at the foot of the bed and fiddling with the papers in his hands, blue eyes watching the two boys sleeping peacefully.

"He's three and in hospital," I whisper, looking over at my boys. "He's terrified."

Doctor Hummel nods, frowning briefly before perking up a bit and gently waving his papers. "I have some good news," he exclaims quietly. "Great, actually."

I raise an eyebrow, run a soothing hand across one small back when the boy starts to stir. He settles back into sleep.

"His brother is a perfect transplant match," the doctor continues. "We'll be able to start treatment in the morning."

There's a moment before the flood, before I have to close my eyes against the cold rush of relief that pours through my bones. _He'll get better. He'll get better _soon.

"Thank you," I say, and if it comes out a little choked he doesn't mention it. He stays standing there, lets me process, and I know there's more he needs to tell me but I'm petting every part of my kids I can reach- their cheeks and foreheads, arms and backs- like they'll disappear if I'm not holding on to them. With one last touch to a small, slightly up-turned nose, I glance back at Doctor Hummel.

"What happens in the morning?"

He smiles gently, reassuringly, and leans against the foot of the bed. "We'll start the chemotherapy. We're going to have to get rid of his old immune system in order for him to build a new one with his brother's marrow."

I frown. "He'll get worse."

The doctor shakes his head. "He will get sick from the chemo, yes, but I promise you, it is necessary. He'll stay here, in a clean room, so he won't pick up any bugs or viruses while his immune system is eradicated."

"How long will they need to stay here?" I whisper as the boys begin to stir some more.

"Micah will be able to go home a few hours after we harvest his marrow," Doctor Hummel replies. "Luca will have to stay much longer so we can monitor the graft and make sure it isn't rejecting the body."

There's a moment, a pause, during which both boys wake with sleepy snuffles and bright eyes. I draw Micah, who's closest to me, into my lap as I move over to sit up properly on the bed. Once situated, I bring an arm around Luca and place him next to his brother, wrapping my arms around them both while they continue to wake up fully.

"How long?"

The doctor shrugs. "It could be three weeks, it could be eight."

"And if it doesn't take?" I ask, "If he rejects it?"

Doctor Hummel takes a breath, sits daintily at the edge of the bed and looks me square in the eye.

"If he does develop Graft-Versus-Host disease," he explains, "we can treat with steroids. He'd be very susceptible to opportunistic infections, but it would help for a while. If he then survives the steroids and the infections, then the transplant should cure him in the end."

I nod, but don't say anything. What can I say to that? The boys are chatting with each other, slapping at hands and pulling at my shirt collar. Micah knocks Luca's heart monitor off and that dreadful flat tone drones from the computer until I fix it back on his hand.

All of this, all of _this_, from an ear infection that wouldn't go away.

"Thank you, Doctor," I decide to say, because that's polite, right?

He shakes his head. "My name is Kurt, Mr. Anderson," and he extends his hand.

I take it with only the slightest hesitation. "Then mine is Blaine."

* * *

Two months ago, Luca had been home from his morning pre-school program for a week with an ear infection that just wouldn't clear up. When he caught a cold on top of that, and it almost immediately turned into pneumonia, so began our hospital journey. It took a long time, countless tests, and many, many tears from both me and my kids. Fed up, exhausted, and frustrated beyond belief we were transferred here, to Maine General Hospital in Augusta, for Luca to be treated by Doctor Hummel for his Adenosine Deaminase Deficiency. I made them dumb it down for me, hearing things like 'Severe Combined Immunodeficiency' just freaked me out, so they told me it meant that he has almost no immune system. They told me he has a late-onset version, not as late as some, but later than most, and that without treatment he has a year, maybe two, to live.

I remember calling my brother that day in a panic; Luca had just been admitted and set up in a clean room, Micah was with our neighbors down the hall who have a daughter my sons' age, and I had locked myself in a bathroom, turned on all the hand dryers and faucets and cried noisily above a sink while trying to listen to my big brother's soothing voice on the other end of the phone. When I started to calm down, long after the dryers shut off on their own, I commented on the loud, boisterous noise coming from my brother's end of the phone. I asked him where he was and he said 'The airport' like I'd lost a few brain cells. Then I realized I'd been hysterical for nearly forty minutes and wondered briefly if anyone had noticed the bathroom door had been locked for so long as I turned off the running faucets.

Cooper got in the next day, all the way from California, with one large suitcase and "The rest," he'd said, "will be shipped over next week."

I hadn't let go of him until Luca woke up from his nap over an hour later.

Now, sitting with my tiny, pale son at eight-thirty in the morning in a hospital bed that looks ready to swallow him up and watching the nurse hang a menacing-looking black bag from his drip stand, I call Cooper at my apartment to make sure he's doing okay with Micah.

"We're fine, Squirt," he tells me, and I can hear Micah's laughter faintly in the background. "He's playing with your bowties- he insists he wears them better than you do."

I laugh, but cringe a little bit at the thought of having to iron and re-organize them all. I may not wear them much anymore, like I had during high school, but the sentimental value they hold is much too high for me to ever get rid of them.

"How's Little Dude?" Cooper asks, and I look over to see Luca watching intently as the nurse pokes a large, hooked needle into his chest catheter to start the session. He really is so small. The ADA Deficiency has stunted his growth- there's a very obvious difference in size between him and his twin brother.

I take a breath. "Chemo's starting," I inform him. "They say he won't feel any different for a few days, but then he'll probably feel like shit."

"Daddy!" Luca reprimands from the bed, pointing accusingly at me with one thin little finger, black curls in wild disarray as he shakes his head at me.

"Sorry, Sport," I laugh, and he gives me one last glare before turning back to the nurse, who hangs a much larger, clear bag onto his drip stand next to the small black one.

Cooper makes an accusing little noise. "Shame on you, little brother."

"Like you didn't say worse around me when I was a kid," I point out, and his silence is all the confirmation I need.

"Anyway," he clears his throat, "I found those notebooks you wanted me to bring, so Micah's headed over to the Hughes' this afternoon and I'll bring them to you."

"Thank you," I say with a groan, glancing over to the small table under the window that sits littered with napkins and tissues and an unfolded tissue box, every surface that can hold ink covered in my small, cramped handwriting.

I've stopped counting how many notebooks I go through in a month. The hypergraphia has calmed somewhat since my school days, after they put me on anti-anxiety medication following a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder. Over the years my dosage has gone down and so has the compulsion, but it still persists. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like either of the twins have inherited the condition.

"When's your next book coming out, anyway?" my brother asks when the lull goes too long.

"A few months," I reply, "and, technically, it's not _my _book."

Cooper scoffs. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. You do most of the work; I'll never understand how you don't take credit for any of it."

I shake my head. Cooper's had trouble for years trying to understand that I don't want the credit. I like being a Ghostwriter. My agent sends me drafts and outlines, people that want to write books but don't have the time or the eloquence, and I take those drafts and turn them into novels, biographies, articles and songs. There's good money in it, great money if you can land the right people, and my agent and I have spent a lot of time cultivating my stellar reputation.

No one needs to know that I've published my own books.

Poetry, mostly, a short story here or there. When it's quiet in the apartment, the boys at school or in bed, and I can't keep the words in any longer, I write for myself. Sometimes I have to translate entire pages, take the jumbled thoughts that have spilled from my pen-tip and rework them into something beautiful- something _mine_.

That's how being a Ghostwriter is tolerable. No one needs to know that Ghostwriter Blaine Anderson is also the best-selling poet Dalton A., whose first book of poems rocketed into popularity and won the Yale Younger Poets Prize.

No one needs to know.

"I'll be there around three," Cooper says, and we hang up after quick 'Goodbye's.

* * *

"He's doing splendidly," Kurt says, stepping into the room with a flimsy plastic apron over his dark blue scrubs, gloves on his hands, face mask hanging under his chin. I'm in a similar get up, though without the gloves and mask, as I've been quarantined in the room with Luca for a week now, and it's unlikely that I'll get him sick. Still, I bathe myself and Luca with a mild disinfectant and I know Kurt probably washed with something similar before coming in.

The day Cooper dropped off my notebooks had been the last day we were allowed visitors. I'd also had him bring over some more of my clothes and Luca's, and some of Luca's favorite toys, his nightlight (we'd been leaving the bathroom light on and the door cracked for the nights, but Luca insisted it wasn't the same as his Disney Princess nightlight), and the pink, fuzzy throw blanket from his bed, freshly laundered.

Now he sits propped up on his hospital bed, coloring books and crayons spread out on the rolling table in front of him, several of his die-cast model cars in a pile-up by his knee after a rather unfortunate collision: "You're not a very good driver, Daddy." His curls have started to come out, thinner in some places than others, but thankfully not falling off in great chunks. I brush his hair twice a day and always make sure he has several of the hospital's standard, disposable aluminum bowls near him for when he needs to vomit.

"Yes," I reply drily, "he's _splendidly_ not eating and he's puking _splendidly_ every four hours."

Even Luca gives me a displeased look at my tone, which makes me sigh and rub his back in apology.

"Sorry," I apologize to Kurt, but he's already waving it off.

"Believe me," he says, "there's been worse."

He goes on to say, with an anticipatory smile on his face, that they'll be taking the marrow harvest from Micah in a few days, the chemotherapy is clearing out what's left of Luca's immune system nicely, and that the transplant will happen before another week is up.

"And then we wait?" I ask.

He nods. "And then we wait."

* * *

Cooper is the one that brings Micah in for his surgery. I manage to see him before he goes under, and hold his hand while they put the mask over his little face. He blinks up at me slowly while I brush the wavy, brown curls back from his forehead, and in another moment, he's asleep.

The operation takes nearly two hours. I go up to check on Luca about halfway through, peering through the large window in his room to find him napping peacefully, then head back down to the basement surgery to wait.

Micah is wheeled out with little finesse, two members of the surgical team handing off a small Styrofoam cooler to waiting hospital staff who whisk it away and upstairs to prepare the marrow for transplant. The bed is installed in a recovery room, curtains drawn around it, where Cooper and I gently coax Micah back awake. There's some crying, he complains that his back hurts where they drilled for the marrow in his hips, but three hours later he's alert and ready to be taken home. I hold him for several long moments at the front of the hospital, unable to let him go just yet, and Cooper waits patiently. He's been a godsend, Cooper: I'll need to get him something spectacular for Christmas.

With a lingering kiss to soft baby hair, I hand my kid over to his Uncle. Micah waves tiredly over my brother's shoulder as he's carried out into the late winter cold, and I wave back until I can't see them anymore.

They've separated the marrow from the blood and now Doctor Hummel is hanging a truly grotesque bag of the stuff from Luca's I.V. stand next to bags of water and glucose. Luca is exhausted, and feebly runs his little '69 Mercedes car along the bright green rail of his bed while Kurt tries to coax him onto his back for a moment. He presses the catheter into my son's chest port and tests it to make sure he got it in right- when he pulls back on the line with a syringe and it begins to fill with blood, he knows he's gotten a good puncture. The line then gets attached to the bag of marrow, and the hydration bags get added to an external port, and then the machine starts and he's off.

Doctor Hummel stays in the room for the transplant; it only takes a little over ten minutes, but Luca is crying, frustrated and so very, very done with it all.

"Shh, sweetheart," I try to soothe him, brushing gentle fingers across his cheek. He leans into the touch but doesn't say anything.

"He's going to have to stay here a while yet," Kurt says, unhooking the tangled lines and removing the needle from Luca's chest port after the machine beeps its conclusion. I gently wipe up the bit of blood that comes up from the puncture site. "We'll keep him here while the transplant engrafts, as he's going to be prone to infection still."

"Do I get to go home, Daddy?" Luca croaks, and it kills me to see his face when I shake my head. To my surprise, when I open up my arms to hug him, he curls away from me and into Kurt, who had perched on the edge of the bed to detach Luca from the machines. Slowly, with an eyebrow raised at me, Kurt gives him a quick squeeze and, after a moment, gently steers him back to lie down against the pillows.

"We need to wait until you're feeling a little better before you can go home," Doctor Hummel tells him patiently.

Luca pouts, draws his fuzzy pink throw blanket up to his chin, and stares down at the little tufts of fuzz, eyebrows drawing together in upset.

"Are you mad?" I ask him, reaching out to put a hand on his knee.

He shakes his head. "I'm not mad," he says, then quieter, and with absolute sincerity, "I'm hurt, and disappointed, and…and _mad_!"

It takes all of five seconds for the laugh to snort out of Kurt, and he clasps his hands over his mouth to try and keep the rest in but he's failing spectacularly. When he sees me laughing outright, he gives up and convulses in hilarity, Luca watching on with a confused little smile.

"What can I say," I explain when he's calmed down, save for small, gasping chuckles that escape every several seconds, "he _adores _Audrey Hepburn."

Kurt runs a thumb under one eye to collect his mirthful tears and reaches out to pat Luca's hand. "You are my very favorite person right now, Mr. Anderson."

Luca grins, all dimples, and pats his hand right back. "You look like a tree."

Which makes Kurt laugh again and I sit, helpless to his levity, watching his easy interaction with my kid with a fondness I didn't know I had.

"Well, I have some other patients to check on," he says finally, standing up and brushing at his face once more, choking back the last of his giggles. "Thank you so much for making my day, Luca," and he gathers up the used supplies, dumps them in the large bin by the door, and waves as he leaves, shaking his head with a smile.

Luca turns to me, still smiling, and all traces of upset gone from his little face. "Can we watch the movie now?" he asks, hazel eyes alight with enjoyment.

I nod and shuffle over to his backpack. "Absolutely, little man. Absolutely."

* * *

Three weeks later, with most of his hair gone and his nausea all but dissipated, Luca is released from hospital.

Kurt himself comes in to give me the discharge papers. I pause in the middle of packing up Luca's 'Iron Man' suitcase to look them over and sign them, handing them back with a flourish.

"We hope you enjoyed your stay here at Maine General," he intones, a teasing glint in his eye as he looks between me and Luca, "and, please, never require our services again."

I laugh at that, but Luca frowns from the head of the bed, 'packing' his toys into his backpack, but playing with his cars when he thinks I'm not looking.

"You don't want to see us again?" he asks, lower lip trembling, waterworks on the way.

With a quick hand I pet his arm and explain. "He just means he doesn't want you to get sick again. I'm sure he doesn't hate you."

Kurt gasps. "I would never!" he insists. "You've been a wonderful patient, Luca, and I just want you to be healthy again."

Luca nods, mollified, and goes back to his cars. I roll my eyes at the ever-changing nature of the toddler's temper, and zip up his suitcase, placing it on the floor next to mine.

"Ready to go, Champ?" I ask him, and he hastily packs up the last of things, grabs his blanket, and crawls across the bed to me. He raises his arms for me to lift him up, so I grab him and set him on my hip.

"Here," Kurt hands me another few sheets of paper. "He's going to need to take these pills for a while, all the information's there, and there's a pharmacy downstairs in the clinic you can get it filled at. It shouldn't take long."

"Thank you," I say, gently readjusting Luca. "You've been wonderful with him, I can't thank you enough."

Kurt shakes his head, tugs a small business card from his scrubs' front pocket and scribbles something down on the back of it.

"If you have any questions or concerns, and I mean _any_," he orders, holding out the card, "do not hesitate to give me a call."

There's a lump in my throat as I take the card and I don't know why. "I promise."

He nods, satisfied. "Good. Is someone coming to help you?" he gestures to the suitcases and my messenger bag, and at the same moment Cooper waltzes into the room.

"That would be me," he grins, heading straight for Luca to give him a hug, except the boy won't let me go, so Cooper just ends up hugging me with Luca in the middle.

"Alright," Kurt nods, backing up towards the door. "Don't forget the prescriptions, follow the instructions to the letter, and _don't _forget to-"

"I won't, Kurt," I interrupt. "I promised, remember?"

"Yes, well," he nods, one hand on the doorknob. "Take care, Luca. Goodbye, Blaine, Cooper."

And he's gone.

Cooper stands in silence for a moment before snatching the business card out of my hand.

"I knew it," he cheers, peering at the numbers on the back.

I snatch it from him and stuff it and Luca's prescriptions into the front pocket of my messenger bag. "You know nothing."

My brother shakes his head, puts my bag on his own shoulder and grabs the handle of my suitcase while I take Luca's, and the boy carries his own backpack on his little shoulders, still hugging his blanket to his chest.

"I know you and the doctor have a thing for each other."

"You know nothing, Cooper," I repeat.

The prescriptions only take fifteen minutes to fill, and it's another thirty before Cooper is pulling into my apartment building's lot. We lug everything up to my fourth-floor apartment in one go, Cooper handling the key at the door, and drop all the luggage unceremoniously in the living room.

"How does it feel to be home, kiddo?" Cooper asks, taking Luca from my arms where he immediately curls up against his Uncle's shoulder.

"I missed it," he says, his voice a bit muffled against Cooper's neck. I let them have a moment and walk down the hall to collect Micah from the Hughes'. Wes opens the door with a smile, my other son clinging to his leg until he recognizes me, and then he's in my arms.

"Daddy!" he screeches. "You're home!"

I laugh and cuddle him; it's really been much too long, and I don't think I'll be able to let either one of them leave my sight for the next good while.

"Luca's home for good?" Wes, a good friend of mine since we met the day I moved in three years ago, asks with a nod towards my front door.

"Hopefully," I say, "barring any complications. He won't be able to go out or have visitors for about six months, though."

Wes' eyes widen, but he nods in understanding. "Well tell him I'm glad he's back, and if you ever need someone to watch this one," he reaches out to pet Micah's curls, "you know where to find me."

With a nod I thank him and take Micah back to our apartment, reminding him to be gentle with his brother, who's still very sick.

"But he won't go away again, right? I helped him, right?"

"You did, Micah," I tell him, opening the door, "you did."

* * *

Part 2- Bloodstream

Six months later on the dot and Luca and I are back at the hospital.

The boys had turned four back in April, when Luca had only been home for a couple of months and still couldn't be around other people. He'd cried a little, but ultimately wasn't too upset when I let Wes and his daughter, Lily, come over for the afternoon. Cooper tried to make it out, but he was on a very tight filming schedule, and just the flights here and back would have eaten up the majority of whatever time he would've managed to get off.

My book had come out soon after, and I'd wheedled my manager into not booking me anymore writing gigs until everything with Luca cleared up. With my bargain-hunting tendencies, inherited trust fund from my grandparents, and semi-steady, often exorbitant salary, I have so much more than enough to keep my little family going for the next while without working. Very technically, the trust fund would be enough to see me through the nursing home and the funeral, and have some left over for the grand-kids, but I refuse to rely on it. Instead, twenty-five percent of it sits in an account with the twins' names on it, collecting interest and waiting to be used for college and life after. Another twenty-five percent stay in my savings account and doesn't get touched, and the plan is to give it, plus whatever money I have left when I die, to my boys' families.

"Do you have your blanket?" I ask Luca, turning from the front door. He shakes his head in a panic and runs back down the hall to his and Micah's room.

Our apartment is considered large by most standards. It's very open, well-lit, and in a wonderful neighborhood. It's the only thing I've really splurged on in my life, and even though I could have easily bought a house for us, we just don't need the room. I make a point of keeping it clean: with an at-home job and two kids who aren't in school just yet, there's really no excuse for mess. Plus, I may not have had the best habits in high school and college, and want to leave my kids with better ones.

"Got it!" Luca exclaims, running back out through the living room.

Wes sits on the couch with Micah, '_Finding Nemo_' on the T.V., but the boy keeps looking over at me and his brother. He doesn't want Luca to leave. He'd cried most of the night before; it took hours to explain that we'd be back in two days.

"Alright, kid," I lean down and make sure he's got everything he needs in his backpack. Then I turn to wave goodbye to Wes and Micah. "Be good, Micah, listen to Mr. Hughes."

"I will, Daddy," he says, waving softly back.

Wes shoots me a reassuring smile. "We'll be fine, Blaine, this is hardly anything new."

I roll my eyes at that- since when is leaving your kid with the neighbor for days at a time an acceptable habit? I open the door and start ushering Luca through, untangling him when the trailing end of his blanket catches in the door.

"Thank you, Wes, we'll be back tomorrow night," and we're gone.

* * *

"Hey, Champ!" comes a voice through the door and in pops Doctor Hummel, wearing pink scrubs today with his lab coat over top.

"Doctor Kurt!" Luca exclaims with a beaming smile, raising up his little arms for a hug. Kurt obliges, leaning down to the bed to give him a squeeze before sitting at the end. I rise from my chair next to the bed and scooch onto it next to Luca. He crawls into my lap and we both look at Doctor Hummel expectantly.

"So, how's it been?" he asks genially. I give him a rundown of the months spent at home, and it's brief- nothing's happened, Luca's been fine.

"That's amazing," Kurt breathes. "We're just going to spend the next couple of days running some test to make sure that the transplant has engrafted and is starting to build a new immune system, okay?"

Luca looks worried. "Will I get sick again?" he asks, sucking a thumb into his mouth and I don't have the heart to reprimand the habit.

Kurt shakes his head. "We're just going to take some blood from you," he explains. "You know your port?"

The boy nods and tugs down the neck of his shirt to tap at the little raised lump on the right side of his chest.

"We'll use that to take some blood, just like before," Kurt says. "And if the tests come back okay, you'll get to go straight home."

"Will he get the port taken out?" I ask, glancing between the two.

"Not just yet," Kurt says. "He's going to need regular blood work for a while, and the port will make it much less painful for him. In about a year, if there are no complications and his immune system has rebuilt, then we'll take it out."

I nod and he sets about wheeling in a small cart with some lines and syringes on top, and he starts hooking Luca up to draw blood. It's over soon, and after the needle is removed from Luca's chest and Kurt's swept off with the samples, we settle in for some good old-fashioned Disney movies, Disney coloring books, and Disney stickers.

Cooper once blamed the twins' attraction to Disney on my own mild obsession, and I agreed with him whole-heartedly. I've always adored the films, nearly every one, but the classics have remained my favorites through my whole life. Much of the joy I felt after bringing the boys home after their birth was from the new justification I had for owning every animated film.

Luca sings along quietly along with Simba during _I Just Can't Wait to be King_, and even growls playfully at me when Simba growls at Zazu. Laughing, I place another _Mulan _sticker next to the picture of Mushu he's coloring, all fierce red lines and jagged oranges. He hasn't quite mastered staying inside the lines, but he at least chooses colors appropriate to the characters and tries to keep it neat. Micah takes a much more…_interpretative _approach to his drawings; his colors tend to blend and mix all over the page, and he uses as many colors on one drawing as he can.

Artistic differences aside, some of my favorite afternoons are the ones I spend sprawled out on my stomach on the floor of our living room, one boy on either side of me and endless pads of paper and coloring books spread out before us. We set a large bin of crayons and colored pencils down right in the middle, and don't resurface for hours.

Now, helping Luca find _just _the right blue for Cinderella's dress, I yearn for this all to be over, to be able to go home and not have to worry about hospital visits or getting a cold that could kill my kid. Still, I hand the proper crayon to my son and decide to be grateful that he's gotten the treatment he needed and will be back home soon.

Kurt comes back that evening, papers in hand and smile on his face.

"Good news?" I inquire hopefully, wiping the corner of Luca's mouth where he's smeared some of his vanilla pudding.

He nods happily. "So far, so good," he says, adding the papers to the clipboard hanging from the foot of the bed. "He's really doing wonderfully, and it looks like the marrow engrafted with no problems."

I feel like I'd been holding my breath for the last six months and am just now able to exhale and inhale properly.

"Oh, thank God," I moan, instinctively squeezing Luca to me, probably a little harder than needed if his indignant squawk is any indication.

Doctor Hummel laughs. "Yes, well there are some more tests that are running right now, and he'll still need to be monitored for a while, but it's looking really great," he says, glancing between us both before settling his eyes on Luca. "You've done a really good job, Luca. You keep it up, okay?"

Luca grins ecstatically and nods. "I promise!"

With some last smiles and reassurances, Kurt leaves once more.

"Done with your pudding, kid?" I ask, and when he nods I take up his trash and dump it in the bin by the door, then start getting him ready for bed.

* * *

The next morning, a couple of hours before Luca will probably wake up, I make my way down to the hospital cafeteria and head for the coffee machine at the back. Cup in hand, I stake out a table along a wall and settle in for some quiet alone time. The room is nearly empty; it's only 7:30 in the morning, and visiting hours don't start until nine. There's no beeping here, no machines whirring or timers going off to remind you that it's time for medicine, or a bath, or to eat. I sip my coffee, just as black as I've always taken it, and watch a few trees wave about in a light breeze out one of the large cafeteria windows.

"Is this seat taken?" a voice asks behind me.

I turn to see Doctor Hummel gesturing at the chair across from me, and I shake my head, giving him an encouraging little smile when he hesitates.

"You looked a little…thoughtful," he remarks, settling in with his own cup of coffee and a plastic bowl of fruit salad. "I'm sorry if I interrupted you."

He's got a couple of crease lines in his cheek, and his scrubs, the same color as yesterday's, look a little wrinkled.

"You didn't interrupt anything," I assure him, accepting a grape when he nudges his bowl into the center of the table. "Did you sleep in your office or something?"

His mouth quirks up in a sheepish smile, and a blush creeps up his neck to settle in his cheeks. "I may have, perhaps, put a rush on Luca's tests and ended up finishing them myself and then I, hypothetically, _could have_ fallen asleep on the sofa in my office."

I shake my head at him, equal parts amused and concerned. "You really didn't need to do that, Kurt," I state, but he waves it off.

"No, I wanted to," he says, chewing slowly on a piece of melon. "That kid's sick of this place, he needs to be home where he's comfortable."

There's a tug in my chest and I reach over to cover one of his hands with my own.

"Thank you."

He flips his hand over to give mine a quick squeeze. "No problem."

Just after noon Kurt comes up to tell us that Luca's cleared all of his tests, his immune system is building up nicely, and that he's free to go home for another few months. The little boy wastes no time in shoving all of his things haphazardly into his backpack, forcing the zipper closed, and jumping off the bed. He stands next to the door, tapping his foot impatiently while I sign some more release forms and take his new prescriptions.

"Thanks again, Kurt, for everything," I tell him, and before I can talk myself out of it I lean forward to give him a quick, round-the-neck hug. He returns it gently patting my shoulder as we let go.

"You still have my number?" the doctor asks, and I nod. I'd entered it into my phone the very first moment I could get to myself the day Cooper and I brought Luca home the first time. Thankfully I hadn't needed to use it, as Luca never once got ill or had any problems.

"He's not entirely out of the woods yet," Kurt reminds me as I sling my messenger bag over a shoulder. "If he gets so much as a sniffle, I want you to call me. There's still plenty that could go wrong."

I laugh. "And on that uplifting note," I tease, following him to the door where he pats Luca's growing curls with fondness.

Kurt rolls his eyes, opening the door to let us through and walking with us down the hall. "You know what I mean. And, you know," he fiddles with the pen from his breast pocket, "if you have any questions or anything, too, or if you just need someone to talk to or some-"

I stop him with a hand on his arm. "I'll call," I promise. And I will.

* * *

_Three Weeks Later…_

The café is moderately filled; there's chatter, and it makes me feel less isolated, but it's far from stifling. My little table sits covered in notebooks, some flipped open to certain pages, others closed and waiting. Some of the pens I brought roll dangerously close to the edge, and I scoot them back with an absentminded hand, still scribbling away down a page in the notebook before me.

"Are you busy?" Someone asks, definitely a man but that's all I can tell, and I can see their shadow fall over the table, feel their presence next to me, but I can't stop just yet. I hold up a finger, a '_one moment, please_' and scrawl double-time.

"I can come back, if-" There's a lull in the general noise of the café when he speaks, and my head jerks up almost without my conscious knowledge. My hand finishes the sentence without me looking at the paper, and it skews on the lines a bit- the last few words droop down onto the line below.

"Kurt!" I exclaim, note the coffee and plate of cookies in his hands, then begin hastily clearing the mounds of paper from the table so he has room to set his things down.

"I don't want to intrude," he says, but I've already stacked up the journals on my side of the surface and wave him down into the opposite seat before he can protest further.

He gently places the plate and cup down before taking a seat, adjusting his satchel on his lap. With two long fingers, he nudges the cookies towards the center.

"So…is this work?" Kurt gestures to my pile of journals and I nod. "You're a writer?"

"Yep," I begin to explain, breaking off a piece of chocolate cookie to nibble. "Mostly biographies. Some novels. A few articles or journals."

Kurt frowns in confusion. "I thought most writers just sort of stuck to one thing."

I grin at him, hand him the other half of the chocolate cookie. "Ah, well, _most _writers do. I, however, am a ghostwriter. I get paid to write the things that people can't be bothered to write themselves, yet want all the credit for."

"That doesn't sound so very fulfilling," the doctor contemplates. "You don't get any credit? None?"

I shake my head. "Not legally. I have a reputation, though, through my clients. And my manager is a genius; somehow she's gotten so many people vying for my services she's built a waiting list."

Kurt's eyebrows shoot up. "That's incredible!"

"It can be," I say, then take a breath. "But, and this is totally a secret," I lean forward and drop my voice as Kurt mirrors me, "I may have published some of my own works."

He laughs and leans back. "Anything I might have read?"

I take a moment. I've never shown anyone, not Wes or my brother, the books I've written. The only people in the world who know me as both Blaine Anderson and Dalton A. are my manager, and the twins. With a deep inhale, I decide that maybe I need more people in my life that I can trust. And maybe Kurt can be one of those people.

"Do you like poetry?" I ask him, reaching into the stack of journals for one near the bottom as Kurt nods vigorously.

"Yes, actually," he says, grabbing at his satchel. "I'm actually kind of picky about it, but there's this one author, he's only written like the one volume and only a few years ago, but I just _love _his writing." With a triumphant noise he draws out a tattered, taped-together, dog-eared, sticky-noted, slim little book.

My mouth drops a bit, and I turn immediately to the journal in my hand, flipping back through the dated pages for somewhere in the middle. I stop at a particularly messy page, where nearly every other line has been crossed out and then replaced; some of the lines had been revised upwards of four times, my writing getting more and more cramped as the space ran out. On the facing page, the second-to last draft of the poem, with just a few revisions to suggest the final version.

Heart in my throat, I hand Kurt the notebook.

He looks confused at first, glancing over the nearly illegible writing, but the more he reads the more his face clears, and he opens up his well-loved book to the proper page and compares the two. Then he notices the date at the top of the page, written in ink from a pen that ran out soon after, and checks the publication date at the front of his book.

"Are you seriously telling me that this is you?" he asks, mouth agape at me from across the table, eyes wider than I'd seen them yet.

Hesitantly, I nod. He gasps and promptly drops both book and journal to the floor, hastily scrambling to gather them up again. When he pops back up from under the table, he reverently closes the journal again and hands it back. I take it with a small, encouraging smile. I've never encountered a fan before, not ever even seen someone holding my book. These waters are untested; I'm a little worried to dip my toes in.

Kurt, however, decides to take a running leap. He grabs his tattered book and snatches up one of my pens from the table, thrusting them both at me.

"Sign. This. _Please_," he begs, desperation in his eyes but there's a playfulness, too.

I laugh. "Don't you have enough of my signature?" I ask, but I take the items anyway. "All those consent and release forms from the hospital."

He scoffs. "I feel obligated to tell you that were it not illegal, I would hoard every document you've ever signed."

I raise an eyebrow and glance down at the front page of his book. "Uhm…do you want me to sign as Blaine or as Dalton?"

His smile is radiant. "As Blaine, of course."

Biting my lip, I quickly scrawl out my name and give him back his book. He immediately opens it to check, staring reverently at the pen marks.

"Kurt," I start, and it takes him a moment to tear his eyes away from my signature. When he does, I give him a level look. "I really wasn't kidding when I said that it's a secret," I gesture at the book in his hands.

He agrees frantically. "Of course! I won't tell a soul, are you kidding me? Besides, Mercedes would kill me if I told her I got your signature, and then she'd steal it. So, no. Your secret's perfectly safe."

The breath whooshes out of me. "Thank you."

"It's no trouble," he assures me, and for a moment we sit in the quiet of the café, the clocks tick over into the afternoon, and I feel the peace I used to think I could only feel when around my sons. That strange, familial peace that says, '_This is your family, and this is where you belong_'.

Kurt breaks the quiet, gently stowing away his freshly signed book back into his satchel.

"So," he says, "how is Luca doing?"

And the afternoon soars on.

* * *

_Two Months Later…_

Kurt had asked me out officially nearly five weeks ago, after we'd run into each other three more times at the café and spent each of those afternoons together. Two weeks after that, we had declared ourselves official 'partners', after I adamantly declared 'boyfriends' too juvenile a term, and Kurt agreed.

Our second date, at his apartment for a home-cooked meal and then onto his balcony with a bottle of wine, he'd asked who the twins' mother is. It took the entire bottle for the story, and a shared bowl of ice cream after, for me to choke it out. I'm not particularly proud of knocking my best friend up in a fit of desperation, a last-ditch attempt to find out if I could be straight at all and finally get my father to stop looking at me like _that_. Of course, not only had I needed to be excruciatingly drunk in order to bed her, I managed to get her pregnant as well. And some months later, at twenty years old, I found myself quite suddenly responsible for two entire people who were utterly dependent on me for everything, and my friend moved away and hasn't contacted me since.

In return, he tells me about his father, his rock, who died of a second heart attack during his first year at Medical School. With his mother deceased since childhood, and considering his father never remarried, Kurt has very little family left.

"An Aunt, I think," he says one day over coffee in a park, the late summer breeze just this side of chilly. "Maybe in Michigan. Or Montana. Or nowhere." He's never met her. He has no grandparents, his mother was an only child. He's twenty-eight years old and may very well be the last of the Hummels.

Family, he explains, is something he's been trying to find for a very long time.

Today's the first day that Kurt will be spending at my apartment with the twins. I'd explained to them as best I could about homo- and heterosexuality, and how either was absolutely fine, but that I happen to be the former. This lead to a discussion about the nature of making babies and an explanation as to the absence of their mother that I hadn't been entirely prepared to have with my four-year-olds, but they deserve to know. Hopefully the both of them grow up feeling comfortable talking to me about these things so that they don't act out the way I had to try and figure myself out. But they're only four at the moment, so I don't bother myself too much with it outside of making sure they are as happy and healthy as they can be.

Kurt buzzes in precisely at eleven- it's freezing outside, winter in Maine sets in fast, so I let him in as soon as I hear and moments later there's a knock at the door.

"Hi!" he greets when I usher him inside. I help him out of his coat and hang it up, earning myself a quick kiss.

"Hey," I reply, take his hand, and bring him straight through to the living room where the boys sit watching_ Cars _and munching on Goldfish.

Luca looks up immediately and squeals happily, leaping off the couch and running over to Kurt, clamping little arms around his legs before Kurt bends down to sling him up and into his arms.

"Luca!" he exclaims, tickling the boy a bit. "How are you feeling? All better?"

His ten-month engraftment check-up was just a week ago, and his results had come back strong. By the one-year mark, he should have a fully functioning, highly operational immune system and be able to go to kindergarten with his brother.

"All better!" Luca confirms happily.

Micah walks over carefully and stands just behind me. He's only met Kurt a few times, and for very brief periods, unlike Luca who's worked quite closely with the doctor for the last ten months. With an encouraging hand I nudge him over to where Kurt has set Luca down and crouched in front of him to chat. He walks over tentatively, but calms when Luca takes both his hand and Kurt's and drags them back to the couch, immediately offering Kurt his bowl of Goldfish.

I smile and lean over the back of the couch to press a kiss into Kurt's temple as he juggles some of the drawings the boys have pressed into his hands to show him.

"I'm making lunch, sweetheart, do you want anything special?" I ask him, low in his ear.

The boys are still chatting away to Kurt, but not actually paying him much attention while they talk about their crayons and finger paints.

Kurt shakes his head. "Whatever you're making is fine."

"Will you be alright out here?" I reach down to tug Micah's shirt straight where it's ridden up, and to smooth down Luca's corkscrew curls.

"I think we'll be just fine," he states, letting Luca crawl across his lap to get to Micah, where they begin to argue a bit over who drew the best _Belle _in their coloring books. Kurt quickly distracts them, flipping open a book of blank paper and complaining that he can't draw at all, and that both drawings of _Belle _are entirely wonderful. He gets them to color with him, all together on the blank paper, creating a splotchy, colorful mess of wax and pencil lead while I, with another kiss to the top of Kurt's head, wander into the kitchen to start lunch.

After a round of grilled cheese sandwiches and grapes, the boys start to nod off against us on the couch, the entire living room littered with debris from hours of creative expression. I ask Kurt if he'd like to help put them down for a nap and he agrees, quietly disentangling Micah from sheets of paper and colored pencils.

They go down with no fuss, a miracle some days, and they'll sleep until about three in the afternoon. Kurt starts picking up in the living room, shuffling papers into a stack before stopping at one, and when I ask him why he's grinning he just shakes his head, drops the piece of paper he's holding, and kisses me hard on the mouth. He turns to collect crayons back into their bin and I sneak a peek at the paper he'd been holding- a shaky crayon, stick-figure masterpiece of four distinct figures, two quite a lot smaller than the others, all standing together and holding circle-stick-hands in one house.

* * *

Part 3- Parchment (and Epilogue)

"Blaine."

He says nothing, simply grins and turns to walk backwards down the aisle a bit, nearly knocking over a display of toy cars.

"Blaine!" I laugh, watching as he gets further away from me and the boys, headed straight for a wall of Disney toys.

"Your father's a goober," I tell the twins, who've just passed five-and-a-half and can't stop telling everyone they meet that they're nearly six years old, and shoving the appropriate number of tiny fingers in their faces.

"What's a goober?" Micah asks, grabbing one of my hands and bouncing excitedly as I begin to steer them further into the huge toy store in the mall to find their dad.

I peek around a corner. No Blaine. "It means he's just like a really big kid, even though he's _supposed _to be an adult," I explain, stopping at the mouth of an aisle stuffed with everything _Barbie_ a child could ever want.

"Hey," a voice speaks up behind me, and a gentle weight settles on my back. "I resent that."

I turn, the weight lifting as I go, to see Blaine hugging an enormous stuffed version of _Stitch_ to his chest. He grins from between the two large ears, waves the paws around at his kids who squeal at seeing the blue creature.

"Stitch!" I cry. "Oh he's adorable, I want him, can we get him, please?" When I try to wrestle the toy from Blaine's arms, he tugs on my wrists and pulls me into a hug, Stitch trapped between us. He laughs in my ear and kisses my temple.

"Now who's the goober?" he chuckles, but he lets me go and gives me the toy to cuddle while we wander the shop some more.

I watch Blaine and the kids pick out a plastic dumpster truck set, and a fashion doll with two changes of clothes and a hair brush. Christmas is coming up, and we've decided to sponsor a low-income family through the homeless shelter. It's a program that happens every year, families that barely have enough money to eat, let alone buy presents for their kids, are registered at the shelter. Other families pick up a tag with the children's names and ages and what they'd like or need, buy and wrap the gifts, and then drop them off at the shelter to be sent out on Christmas. It's something I've been doing for several years now, and it makes me giddy that I've got a family of my own to share this with this year.

"Got everything?" I ask as my three boys finally meander back to the front of the store where I stand with my Stitch plush.

Blaine nods happily, dumps the basket of toys at the register. I let Micah and Luca take turns carrying Stitch, who stands only a few inches shorter than them, to the clothing store. Here I grab a couple packs of basic t-shirts, using the twins to gauge how big they should be. The family we're sponsoring has a little boy a year younger than our boys, so I grab one pack in the size they are now, and another one size smaller, to hopefully last the kid a while. They also have a three-year-old girl, so I guess at her sizes and add a pack of colorful long-sleeve t-shirts alongside a pack of plain ones to our cart. A couple of comfy zip-up sweaters, one size too big for them to grow into, and we're done.

"Now we get to go home and wrap these up," I tell the boys as I pay for the clothes and take the bags from the cashier.

"With the shiny paper?" Luca asks, bouncing a little ways ahead of us before he's scooped up by Blaine.

"With the shiny paper, yes," Blaine agrees, taking a few bags in his free hand so I can take Stitch from Micah and lead the boy across the parking lot.

* * *

Home.

I'd moved into Blaine's apartment with the boys over the summer. It wasn't much of a discussion- my place was smaller, and trying to move with two kids was just asking for stress. So I let my lease run out, packed it all up and hauled box after box over to the Anderson home, where I would have bothered unpacking if Blaine hadn't decided on something a little more adventurous.

"I want to buy a house," he'd said, stuttered it out over breakfast one morning when I'd been trying to find the will to wake up in my cup of coffee, the twins still sleeping.

"Hmm?" I'd replied, hunched over my mug, letting the steam carry the bitter scent of the drink across my face.

"I want a house," he'd repeated, more energetic this time, and it made me more alert. "I want a yard and a porch, a place that's all our own where the boys can spread out and grow up, and maybe…" here he'd paused, "and maybe someplace we could have a baby together."

We'd talked about it, absolutely. I want a family. A big one. I adore the twins, they've become just as much mine as Blaine's, and there's nothing I'm more sure of in this world than the fact that Blaine and I are going to grow old together. I've known it for over a year now, since our very first '_I love you_'s.

Of course, I'd said yes.

The house hunting is on the back burner for now, until after Christmas. We've set up some appointments the first week of the New Year, and I'm itching to go and see them. My head spins with colors and patterns and wood floors and carpets daily. But for now, I am content.

"Shoes off, please," I remind the boys, all three of them, when they make to walk straight into the apartment and track dirty snow slush all over the wood floors.

Blaine grins while he knocks his shoes off in the entryway and lines them up next to mine, looking at them sitting side-by-side fondly. Without a word he snags my coat from my shoulders and hangs it up in the front closet, placing his directly beside it, and the boys' on either side. He's been very enthusiastic about incorporating my belongings into his, and pouts when I remind him there's no point in me fully unpacking if we're just going to be moving in a month.

We herd the boys into the living room, push the coffee table to the side a bit and drag out all of our Christmas present wrapping supplies. The boys are adamant that they wrap the toys themselves, so with each of us hovering over them, we manage to produce two, slightly-lumpy, excessively-taped presents with a lopsided bow on each. Blaine and I quickly put the shirts and sweaters into two gift bags and pile in the tissue paper, making them look as festive and neat as we possibly can. No doubt these kids' parents will be working over the holiday, so this may very well be the only bit of Christmas they'll get.

As a final touch to both our own holiday and the family's we're sponsoring, I pull out some bowls and spoons in the kitchen and set us all to work on gingerbread, cinnamon spice, chocolate, and peppermint cookies. A small baggie with a couple of each go into the gift bags, ready to be dropped off at the Center tomorrow.

The boys go down for their nap, and I'm feeling the need for one, as well, so I take up my _Stitch _and bring him to the bedroom with me, stripping down to boxers and t-shirt and cuddling up with him under the covers.

"Should I be jealous?" Blaine asks on a laugh from the doorway. I only hum in response. "Sleepy time?" he observes, and at my nod he strips down as well and climbs in behind me, arms gripping around my waist in that comfortable way I've come to associate with _home_.

"Thank you," I tell him, wriggling backwards against his chest to press as much of me against as much of him as I can. He tucks his legs between mine and squeezes me gently around the middle. I smile and nuzzle happily into Stitch.

"For what?" he asks softly, and I can feel his breath rustling my hair.

"For _you_," I reply, and fall asleep to the feel of his lips against my neck and his murmur of, '_Always_'.

* * *

This is the fourth house we've looked at today.

The holidays have passed in a rush. It had been my second Christmas with the Andersons, but my first after I'd started living with them. Just as the year before, no place in all of Maine felt warmer than that couch in that living room, Blaine curled into my side and a boy on each of our laps, watching Christmas movies with snow falling steadily past the windows.

I glance down at my hand as our realtor walks us into yet another home. It looks different. It _feels_ different. I'm not yet used to the small additional weight of the ring, simple in design but beautiful and complex in sentiment. Such a cliché, to be engaged on Christmas, but I stopped caring the moment Blaine knelt in front of me, the boys clapping excitedly from the couch.

"It's a little dark," I hear Blaine say, and snap out of my reverie to take a cursory look around the place.

It _is_ dark; every wall and floor is made of the same wood, pillars and counters clutter it up, and the raised, exposed-beam ceiling just makes it look unfinished as opposed to rustic. Still, we stick it out, let her say her piece, then shake our heads and move on to the next one.

"This is getting ridiculous," I mutter, strapping into the passenger seat of our car, getting ready to follow the realtor to the last place she's got lined up today. If this one doesn't pan out, we're going to have to start all over.

Blaine pats my knee, pulls into the street behind the little blue car.

"We will find something, Sweetheart," he states, giving my knee a little shake to drive it home. "Give it time."

I grumble, "I don't want to give it time, I want to be living with you and the boys in a proper house right _now_." I know I'm being petulant; it must hardly be attractive on a nearly-thirty-year-old, but Blaine just chuckles and glances quickly at me.

"You're adorable," is all he says, and I can't help the grin.

We pull into the drive and I immediately perk up. It looks big, and it has a porch; two-car garage and what looks like a two-story open foyer. Fingers crossed, and one hand held tightly in my fiancé's, I push open the front door and gasp.

It's perfect.

It looks freshly redone, each wall painted a dark grey-green but all the accents are white, which keep it from looking dismal. The floors are all dark tile and rich brown hardwood, large windows let in endless sunlight and the upper landing is exposed to the foyer. My heart's somewhere up near my tonsils as we're led into the kitchen, and I nearly faint; double-stacked ovens, a breakfast island with bar stools, and a pantry big enough to house a small family, all with plenty of room for two grown men and their children to spend an afternoon baking without crashing into each other. Directly opposite sits the living room, and part of me wonders why we're still standing here, where are the trucks, why aren't we _moving_?

"There are four bedrooms upstairs, would you like to see?" we're asked, and both of us nod fervently.

"Blaine, it's perfect," I breathe at the second bedroom. I'm too busy picturing a crib and gauzy white curtains, stuffed animals piled in a corner near a rocking chair with colorful books on shelves, to notice that Blaine's already asking for all the proper papers.

* * *

_One year later…_

_There must be something in our genes_, I think, holding my daughter close to my chest while her twin brother is being cuddled and fed by Blaine.

Cooper is with Luca and Micah at the house, the three of them eagerly waiting for us to bring home the newborns from the hospital. There had been very little discussion on the _possibility_ of having more children; whatever discussion there had been, it was always about _how_ we were going to have these other children. Blaine desperately wanted me to father a baby through surrogacy. Part of it was the fact that I have no living family, that there's no one left to pass on the Hummel blood. But another part, and, I think, the _greater _part, was the fact that whenever Blaine had described the kind of children I might produce, he would always get this absolutely smitten look on his face, often losing himself entirely in imagining small versions of me running around the house.

A testament to Blaine's persuasive qualities- _damn writers, damn them all_- here I stand ten months after we'd decided I'd be the father, nine months after we'd found a suitable surrogate, and eight months since she'd successfully conceived.

They'd been born prematurely, but healthy; they're receiving oxygen to help their lungs along for right now, but they'll be coming home with us tomorrow. Our surrogate, a young mother of her own daughter, is recovering in a separate room. She'd needed the money, nothing more, and while her pregnancy had been a little awkward and standoffish for the three of us, we are more than grateful to her.

"How's he doing?" I ask Blaine softly, gently rocking Jodi in my arms, bouncing a little on the spot and watching her yawn.

"He's just fine," he replies, lifting the small bottle from Morgan's mouth, frighteningly tiny fingers reaching out to grab weakly at it. Blaine chuckles and lets him suck at it some more until he's finished, then oh-so-slowly lifts him up against a broad shoulder and taps Morgan's little back.

There's a stirring in my gut, watching Blaine and the baby; I've loved this man for over two years now, and somehow he always manages to top himself. When I think I can't possibly love him more, all it takes is him burping our newborn child and I feel a little lightheaded with it. It had happened at our wedding, as well, and our engagement before that. It had happened the first time Luca called me '_Papa_', and then right after when Micah had said the same. The day we added that hyphen to our names, and the boys sat at the kitchen table practicing writing '_Hummel-Anderson_' over and over to show their first grade teacher.

_Tell me we'll never get used to it…_

* * *

_EPILOGUE- Three years later…_

"Daddy, you promised!" Jodi shouts from her bed, all pinks and whites, hearts on every surface. She sits with one stubborn thumb in her mouth, shoulder-length chestnut hair pulled back into a ponytail and gym shorts and a t-shirt serving as her nightclothes as she refuses to wear anything else to bed.

Across the room, Morgan, beneath quiet grey sheets and deep burgundy comforter, leaning against pillows patterned in geometric black shapes, sits silently, eyes wide and observant, taking in everything.

This set of twins couldn't possibly have more startlingly dichotomic personalities if they tried. Jodi can be quite loud, demands attention wherever she goes, and often directs play dates. She's sporty, loves to run and get dirty with her big brothers, and wrestles with the best of them. Morgan spends a lot of his time with Blaine, sitting in the living room or den and just watching him write endless words. He's been able to read for nearly a year now, simple books with lots of pictures, but he often pulls heavy tomes from the bottom shelves of the bookcase and stares at them as if he can understand just by sheer force of will.

Luca and Micah have taken to being big brothers effortlessly. At nine, neither of them stands quite at average height, Luca even less so because of his early childhood illness, and Blaine's jokingly apologized to them for passing on his own lack of stature. They take their younger siblings to parks and to libraries with very little encouragement from their parents, and enjoy teaching them new things.

"What did I promise?" Blaine calls back. He knows the answer, of course he does, but in this house we take every opportunity to teach Jodi a little patience.

"To read!" she exclaims, half out of bed already, probably to storm into the living room and demand her bedtime reading.

"Daddy will be here in a minute," I tell her, ushering back into bed completely and tucking her in. I feel a tug on the leg of my jeans and turn to see Morgan standing behind me, arms up-stretched. I scoop him up and plant him on a hip, nuzzle my nose into his soft, light-brown hair. Both twins have my exact hair color, but Jodi's is a little coarser. Her eyes are greener, as well, and Morgan's are entirely steel-grey. It had been a startling color at first, to see it in a baby, but it suits him now.

"Here I am," Blaine announces, stepping onto the soft pink carpet- a color they'd agreed on immediately- of their room and waving around my old, horribly tattered copy of his first book of poems. Luca and Micah follow behind him, jumping up to sit cross-legged at the end of Jodi's bed.

Blaine crawls right up next to Jodi and she leans into his side. I carry Morgan with me and sit on his other side, adjusting the small toddler in my lap until we're all comfortable.

"Which one?" he asks the assembled children, opening the book and smiling at the way the tape along the spine crackles in protest.

The poems aren't happy. They are vivid and chaotic, written during hypergraphic episodes that left Blaine powerless against the deluge of emotion and words at a time when hopelessness happened just as often as happiness. But the kids enjoy listening to them. They understand the words but not the meanings; they listen to hear Blaine speak and to be that much closer to him.

Sometimes he recites his poems to me in the earliest hours of the morning, traces them into sweaty skin and breathes them into my pores.

"The one about the light," Morgan offers, his voice so quiet, yet high and clear. Blaine is convinced he'll be a countertenor like me, but he gets shy when we try and get him to sing.

"Alright," Blaine nods, flipping to the proper page and settling back more comfortably. I lean my head onto his shoulder, and he reaches out with his free hand to grip my knee in that instantly grounding way he always has.

He clears his throat, and speaks:

"_Sunlight pouring across your skin, your shadow_

_ flat on the wall._

_ The dawn was breaking the bones of your heart like twigs._

_You had not expected this,_

_ the bedroom gone white, the astronomical light,_

_ pummeling you in a stream of fists._

_You raised your hand to your face as if _

_ to hide it, the pink fingers gone gold as the light_

_streamed straight to the bone,_

_ as if you were the small room closed in glass_

_ with every speck of dust illuminated._

_ The light is no mystery,_

_the mystery is that there is something to keep the light_

_ from passing through."_

* * *

**_A/N:  
_**_The poetry does not belong to me, it is from "Crush" by Richard Siken.  
_

_I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading ^_^_


End file.
